SHORT RIGA

As an individual department within this year’s festival the team behind the wittily titled SHORT RIGA have devised a remarkable feat – altogether three competitions of new shorts from around the world, Baltic student films and a separate category for music videos. Showcased within three respective programmes SHORT RIGA will take over the newly established small theater KINO BIZE as well as organise workshops and host an award ceremony.

Brothers Gummi and Kiddi are sheep-farmers who pride themselves with the best flocks in Iceland. And yet although they have a common job, and their sheep have a common ancestor, the brothers have not spoken in decades.

Eastern Europe, 1835. Two riders cross a barren landscape in the middle of Wallachia. They are the gendarme Costandin and his son. Together they are searching for a “gypsy slave” who has run away from his nobleman master and is suspected of having an affair with the noble’s wife.

The film tells the love story of the refugee Patrick and Sara from Berlin, who are fighting together for refugee rights in Berlin. When harmless advance turns into a sexual assault, the group is forced to rethink their aims and the private love story grows to an unwanted public dimension.